Good customer experience requires more than just technology

Businesses swear by the adage “Customer is the king”. To this end, the business community has witnessed umpteen business models to meet customer expectations. Some models work, some don't. So what is the secret recipe to attain perpetual customer delight? Well to cut short your expectations, there is no one rule that can guarantee that your business will meet the expectations of your customers each time, every time. In short, Customer Expectations is not static. With time, with new technology, with the changing business environment, it evolves-and as a business you need to evolve too!

The two sides of a coinToday businesses cater to the vast majority of millennial customers and they don't hope that you meet their needs. It is a fundamental expectation that they have from you! The digital revolution has left no one untouched and customers are expecting a refreshing experience from each interaction they have with businesses. How the customer perceives this change forms one side of the coin and the onus for building the right perception in customer’s mind lies with the businesses.

The idea that is being driven down here is that the focus is neither on the business nor on the technology, but on the customer and the customer journey. The significance of customers as one of the most important business stakeholders is recognized by business communities today. Customer engagement extends beyond simple buying-selling or product/service delivery interaction. It encompasses after-sales service and support, relationship management, product/service training and usage, cross-selling, repeat purchase, product return/service refund, quality assurance and customer feedback.

Customer Experience can essentially be thought of as a spectrum or continuum of customer interaction with the business. The challenge for businesses lies in looking at this spectrum of interactions as an opportunity to build a positive customer perception. From assessing the customer need to seeking feedback, your brand exercises the complete purchase cycle with each customer, every time. The cumulative layers of communication involving the customer directly or indirectly, across these stages form an impression and/or sentiment in the customer’s mind, called Customer Experience. How precisely and contextually this experience is delivered by the organization forms the other side of the coin.

It's a tossup..or is it?How can you as a business ensure that the right perception is built? Technology is one part and how that technology fits into the interaction with customer – marketing, sales, product delivery, product usage, product support and feedback – is another. No organization today can afford to undermine the importance of delivering the ‘right’ experience to the customer as well as capturing it, and all of it in a timely and ‘as-is’ manner. This time bracket is rapidly shrinking day-by-day for organizations. It’s a given that the millennial customers require instant gratification, else they don’t mind switching over to your competitor.

Regarding the ‘as-is’ aspect of customer experience, it involves an unbiased capturing of impression the business leaves upon the customer, including how the product/service is perceived. And a ‘right’ experience is no single, generic experience. It is subjective and contextual and needs to be crafted with a spontaneous yet managed mix of business genius as well as the human element.

The business genius would come from a well-assessed implementation and use of technology. To begin with, for an effective customer experience, you need to empathize with the customer and understand the customer's pulse. To understand a customer, you need intelligent business tools that can give you interesting insights. Business Process Management (BPM) and Enterprise Content Management (ECM) tools can help businesses gather customer data, design effective workflow process to streamline service delivery and Customer Communication Management (CCM) tool to deliver structured communication to customer.The human element would come out from listening to the customer, customer empathy and regular interactions. The digital element helps the business and the customer stay connected.

To conclude, technology facilitates a good customer experience however the experience has other equally important elements to it such as the context, timeline, precision, accuracy and agility. The best results are obtained when these elements work in tandem.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETCIO.com does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETCIO.com shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person/organisation directly or indirectly.

Virender Jeet is Sr. Vice President at Newgen Software.His vision, perseverance and passion have driven the breakthroughs which Newgen has achieved in BPM, ECM, CCM and Case Management technologies. Virender is also a pivot in managing the ECM products for technology giants such as Canon and Toshiba. Jeet has over 27 patents registered to his name.

Virender Jeet is Sr. Vice President at Newgen Software.His vision, perseverance and passion have driven the breakthroughs which Newgen has achieved in BPM, ECM, CCM and Case Show more.. Management technologies. Virender is also a pivot in managing the ECM products for technology giants such as Canon and Toshiba. Jeet has over 27 patents registered to his name.